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Allow me, for the club and personally, to offer to you our best wishes for your health and happiness, and to extend to you an invitation, whenever you are in the city, to visit our grounds.
- I am, dear sir,
- Yours, very sincerely,
- ROBERT WALLER,
- Chairman Committee S. G. C. C.
- ROBERT WALLER,
- Yours, very sincerely,
- I am, dear sir,
Philadelphia, October 11, 1859.
Robert Waller, Esq.,
Dear Sir;—Your very flattering and kind note was handed to me yesterday by Mr. Baker, of Canada.
I am much gratified to find the speech I had the honor to deliver by your invitation, at the very handsome entertainment given in New York by the St. George's Cricket Club, to the "All-England Eleven," has proved acceptable. I will with pleasure comply with your request for a copy, but must respectfully beg your indulgence until I return home next week, that I may be able in the quiet of my own study, properly to prepare it for the press.
Do present the acknowledgments of an old brother cricketer to the St. George's Club, for their invitation to visit their ground whenever I may be in its vicinity; and for yourself, accept my cordial thanks for courtesies which have made a deep and lasting impression upon your very much obliged,
JOHN B. IRVING.
SPEECH OF DR. IRVING.
I acknowledge the distinguished honor which has been conferred upon me by being invited to represent American Cricketers here this evening, and to respond to the sentiment which has been given in compliment to that now large, and respectable body of our fellow-citizens. The duty assigned me is a very pleasing one, yet I must confess I undertake it with some diffidence. I cannot forget I stand here this evening a stranger among you—personally known to but few within the sound of my voice. Nevertheless, Mr. Chairman, though I am in one sense a stranger, personally known as I have said, to few who now hear me, I am to you, and to the gentlemen here assembled, no stranger in feeling, for who with one
